Juaben Secondary School cries for improved facilities

Juaben (Ash), Aug. 30, GNA - The Juaben Secondary school, in the Ejisu-Juaben district of Ashanti has appealed to the government, the district assembly, the Juaben Rural bank, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and individual Juaben citizens to come to the aid of the school.

The Very Reverend Osei-Boadi, Headmaster of the school, who made the appeal said the school faced a lot of problems particularly infrastructure which is militating against effective teaching and learning.

He mentioned inadequate classrooms, dormitories and dining hall as some of the infrastructure shortage and transport. Very Rev. Osei-Boadi said, currently the school needed additional 18 classrooms as the existing 24 classrooms were woefully inadequate to accommodate the current student population of 1,800. The Headmaster said the classroom situation had compelled them to combine the classes, making each class too large to promote effective teaching and learning.

"The school has no assembly hall and so we are forced to conduct worships and morning assemblies in the open, adding that the accommodation situation was horrible, as in some cases, students are paired which means that the school needs more dormitories. Very Rev. Osei-Boadi said about 60 to 80 students accommodated at the old dormitory are paired and that the old dormitory itself needed rehabilitation.

The dining hall, he said, was not spacious enough to sit all the students and so they take their meals in batches and so precious teacher-student contact hours are lost. The Headmaster said apart from shortage of staff bungalows, the school had no means of transport as the two old wooden trucks are used in carting foodstuffs and firewood.

In spite of all these problems, he said, they were doing their best to produce God-fearing and disciplined students for the development of the country.